


(Un)Intentional Error

by thelittlelion



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Blood, Dom Drop, Flogging, Light Bondage, M/M, Punk Ass Alexander to the Sweetest Boy in 10 Seconds Flat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11711712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlelion/pseuds/thelittlelion
Summary: Alexander comes home spitting and biting. George is just trying to keep up.*Prompt: “I need you to forgive me.”





	(Un)Intentional Error

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashilrak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashilrak/gifts).



> For Kookookarli, who runs these wonderful gift exchanges. Somehow, I always end up with this pairing.

Sweat drips down the flogger as though it were part of his arm. George turns the wet leather over in his palm, feeling the weight of its tails. His collar clings around his neck, tie tight and cloying. His shirt sticks to the skin of his back, inelegant. He would have taken it off before they’d started if Alexander had given him any time to think.

Not that he’s granted Alexander any better. The man is tipped over the arm of their couch, still mouthing profanities into the fabric. His pants are rucked up around his ankles, shoes on, shirt shoved up under his armpits. It leaves the long expanse from his shoulders to his knees exposed. The swell of his ass shines red where George has already beaten him. The flogger has bitten mean lines down into the meat of his thighs. Alexander’s task seems like difficult work, keeping balanced with his wrists tied under him. George had made time enough for that, at least.

“Are you done now?” George asks, but Alexander is still squirming. George knows the man’s not ready to be through with it, even before he opens his mouth to spit.

“I’m not going to apologize, _George._ I didn’t do anything fucking wro – ”

The leather cracks as it strikes Alexander’s ass. _Whippy._ George prefers the deep bruise of some of their heavier beasts, but this is the one Alexander had trotted out with when he’d come home snapping at George, tossing it at his feet like the challenge to a duel.

“Language, Alexander,” he says, trying not to sound as done as he feels. “It’s a part of respect. You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

“ _Fuck_ you too, George.”

Alexander hisses in his rage. George doesn’t know what set him off, only that Alexander’s asking for it. Has been asking for it since the moment he’d walked in the door. George, who’s had his own spectacularly bad day at work, really doesn’t enjoy the tone.

“Fuck you!” Alexander snarls. “Fuck you! _Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”_

The flogger flies. George isn’t even mad. He’s more tired than anything. The burn in his arm from swinging the leather seems little compared to the demon backache squatting between his shoulders. He’d worked through lunch on the thought of a relaxing night at home. Perhaps even having Alexander work out some of his service kink with a shoulder rub. Instead, he’d arrived home to a bristling hellion in place of his normally excitable, if well-intentioned, boyfriend.

Alexander’s thighs shake under this new series of blows. Spasms seize his calves and quads. Alexander buries his face in the cushion, cussing like he’s counting strokes, eyes screwed up, teeth exposed. It’s all very dramatic. George’s eyes roll, catching on the clock above the mantle. Any lingering appetite for the discipline curdles at the time.

He’ll have to stay up late again to finish his work now. No time to make the dinner he’d planned. That meant takeout, again. Not good for a man his age. No time to catch up on the sleep he’d missed either. Alexander would still need aftercare - and considering the mood he’s in no doubt he’ll need twice the time as usual stretched out on their bed. Not that George resents aftercare. He doesn’t. Not at all. But it’s another chunk of _time._

“ _– George!”_

The train of thought collapses. George’s eyes plunge to Alexander – because somehow his eyes had wondered _off_ Alexander? Had wondered off and left his arm swinging blind. Unregulated. A tamed danger spun out of control.

Where nice even lines had been reddening into the skin, blotchy patches now dominate. It tells a damning story. A session of blows, one on top of the other, who even knows how hard. They’re ugly. Imprecise. George stares at faint red beads welling in the deepest crevasses.

Alexander’s face screws up. His cheek is turned to the side, lips pinched, lines tight around his eyes. It isn’t the expression of someone sinking deep into the twin sensations of pain and pleasure. It isn’t pleasurable at all.

“Ow!” Alexander squirms against the couch. “Yellow - _ow_! Hold on – _fuck!_ ”

The flogger drops with a dull thud - not at all whippy now. George reaches for Alexander, hesitates, watches a pearl of blood trickle down Alexander’s thigh.

Safety scissors. George needs safety scissors. He needs them right now.

His eyes cast about. Sees the flogger on the floor. Sees Alexander’s tie crumpled a few more feet away. He’d sent Alexander into the spare room to choose his punishment. Had picked up the cord of rope himself from their bedroom.

“George?” Alexander cracks open an eye, then two. They’re alert, if squinting. “George, what’s wrong?”

George reaches for him for a second time, can’t find a place to lay his palm that isn’t reddened skin, pulls away.

“I’m going to get you out of these,” he says. “Hold on for one second. Just one second.”

He runs for the bedroom. Alexander calls after him. The drawer where they keep their regular toys still hangs open. George finds the safety scissors sitting neatly to one side, next to the empty spot the rope usually sat.

He stumbles back into the living room to find Alexander attempting to leverage himself up off couch and tilting precariously to the side because of it. He finds George at once, neck craning back to look at him. His eyes widen at the scissors.

“George? I’m okay, really. I just needed a minute to breathe.”

George barely hears him. “I’ll get you out of these ropes. Just give me one more second.”

He at last finds a place to rest his hands, taking Alexander by the shoulders gingerly and tilting him up. Alexander’s legs shake as he finds his footing. He gasps as his shirt begins to slide down his back. George grabs a fist full of the material a shoves it up, his other arm making a bar across Alexander’s chest to steady him. A few beads of red trickle down Alexander’s legs.

The scissors do their work. He flings the rope across the room hating every inch of it. Alexander’s hands come down on the couch to keep steady. The man winces as his back pulls.

To George it feels as though someone’s threaded his bones with string. He works without thought, eyeing the too-short couch and the way Alexander shudders.

“We need to get you laying down.”

Alexander’s ankles are still tangled up in his pants. George bends down and starts pulling Alexander’s shoelaces. Palms press against his shoulders. Alexander holds himself up while toeing off his shoes. George grips his pants as Alexander carefully steps out of them, leaving him in nothing but a wrinkled shirt around his shoulders.

When George straightens up, he finds Alexander’s eyes pinched again in pain.

He takes Alexander by the arm. ““Come on. You can lay down on the bed.”

“Not that I wouldn’t mind that, but you’re freaking me out.” George doesn’t respond. Alexander digs his heels into the carpet. “What’s wrong?”

George’s fingers tighten on Alexander’s arm. He nearly jerks them off when he notices, only keeping contact by the shaky tilt to Alexander’s knees. Alexander eyes bore into him until he speaks.

“You’re bleeding.”

“What?” His eyes widen. He turns, trying to see his own back, only to recoil. “Seriously?”

“Stop that. Stand still.”

Alexander ignores him, twisting again. “Is it that bad?”

“There’s _blood_ , Alexander.” The words come out snappish. George berates himself at once for the tone.

Alexander doesn’t jerk back though; not like he would have if he’d been anywhere near going under. Or dropping. All of that flogging and Alexander didn’t look any more out of his head than when he walked in.

George softens. “Let’s get you to the bed, okay? You need to lay down.”

Alexander doesn’t fight him this time, though the weakness in his legs still means it takes them longer than it should to get to the bedroom. Alexander complacency flees the moment they enter as the man swerves towards the long mirror across the room. He turns his back, whistling as the full expanse of his back becomes clear.

“Damn, George.” Alexander’s fingers crawl along his lower back, cringing when he presses along the worst edges of the welts. “I was that big of a shit, huh?”

George doesn’t find it funny. His mind is scrambling through ancient safety classes and first aid seminars. Somewhere he must know what to do. There have to be procedures for open wounds in his head. Things he hasn’t thought about in years because _there never was supposed to be blood._

Alexander meets his eyes in the reflection, playful smile slipping off when he sees George’s face. “Hey.” He turns around, too quickly, flinching when it pulls at his cuts. George crumples even further. “Hey, no. This? This is nothing.”

Alexander reaches for him. George turns his face.

“Lay down,” George pleads. He steps back on stiff legs. “I’m going to get the medicine kit.”

“George wait.”

George walks out before Alexander can try to follow. In the bathroom, he manages to spill a box of Band-Aids on the tile. He’s more careful after that: righting the box, gathering supplies, washing his face in the sink. He can see the whites of his own eyes in the split second they land on the mirror.

By some miracle, Alexander has listened to him. He’s stretched out on the bed naked when George returns, shirt flung over their side table. His chin is held up on a pillow beneath his arms, giving him an angle to watch the door and lock his stare with George as he reenters. George’s stride falters.

“I really hate it when you do that.” Alexander’s voice doesn’t carry an accusation, though his words are bitter.

George settles himself on the corner of the bed and doesn’t look at his hands as he lays out the kit. Apologies aren’t covered in a Band-Aid box. George doesn’t have the right words. He presses a palm between the unmarked skin between Alexander’s shoulders and prays he’ll keep still.

It’s finally come back to him. Alcohol first. They flinch together when he presses a soaked cotton wad to the open welts. The places where the skin has split are mercifully small, though the just glimpsing the blood makes George woozy. He doesn’t want to think about the very real possibility of scarring _. Leaving permanent marks –_ another thing he’d sworn not to do.

The pinched look around Alexander’s eyes fades by the time George presses the last bandage on. He’s watching George not with that dazed, floating look of a good scene, but with the same sharp intelligence he yields in the courtroom. George feels on trial. Deserves to be on trial. He ducks his head from the stare all the same.

He collects the trash without a word. Alexander just watches him, shifting when George stands up and tosses the bloody swabs and bits of bandage wrappers in the bin. George peels his gloves off and ties the trash bag. He’s thinking about taking it all the way outside, to the dumpster down the stairs, when Alexander clears his throat.

“Hey,” Alexander calls.

George doesn’t turn around. He sets the bag back in the trashcan, picks up the medicine kit and shoves it in the drawer where the rope used to sit. He needs to get more scissors. A pair for every room.

He breathes and the air that escapes him comes out shuddering and doesn’t stop. George pinches the bridge of his nose, his other arm crossed tight across his chest. The tips of his fingers seem to tingle, skin flushing hot in a showering down his spine.

The bed creeks. Alexander takes his elbow, tugging at his arm. George can’t open his eyes. Not when there’s a lump building in the back of his throat. He knows without looking that Alexander’s brows are pulled together, his expression stubborn. George sits down before Alexander gets the stupid grand idea to stand up.

Arms surround him. Alexander’s voice sounds low in his ear. “I’ve got you. I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me.”

Alexander tugs on his arms until George finally lets him pull them down. His fingers are still numb. He feels thumbs rub across his cheeks, sliding in away damp. His breath catches on Alexander’s hands, sounding loud and uneven.

“I am so sorry,” Alexander says, but no, that isn’t right at all.

George jerks back into the present. Alexander’s expression is contrite, eyes angled down towards the bed sheets. George opens his mouth – want to tell him how _wrong_ that is – but Alexander reads the sharp breath as another bad sign.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. I just had _the worst_ day at work. An absolutely shitty fucking day.” Alexander shakes his head. “Language, I know. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Let me make it up. What do you need?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

The words rush out of him. Alexander shrinks. “I know it was dumb. Really dumb. Goading you into a scene like that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Alexander.” George reverses their hands, taking Alexander’s. “Alexander, no. You don’t know what – ”

“I knew exactly what I was doing,” Alexander snaps, eyes darting up. “It was a _really_ shit day.” He chuckles, tone rueful. “What do you need? Come on, George. Let me help.”

“I just _beat_ you, Alexande..” George can’t believe he has to remind him. “I made you bleed.”

“I goaded you into it,” Alexander returns, mouth taking on a stubborn tilt.

“And I let you. Goddamn it, Alex. I broke a hard limit!”

George breathes heavily at the outburst. Alexander’s lips twist, but not in anger.

“I mean it hurt? I guess. It was a little unexpected. I didn’t safeword out, though.”

“You _should_ have. I could have hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I just _did._ ”

“George.” Alexander’s hands return to his face. The severe lines of George’s frown cut into his palms. “You hit me a little too hard, okay? Mistakes happen. A little blood won’t hurt me.”

That’s not nearly good enough. “It’s my job to take care of you. If I can’t keep you safe – ”

Alexander shushes him. “I am safe. And we take care of each other. That’s my job too.”

His fingers skim over George’s cheekbones. George isn’t crying anymore, but Alexander’s hands linger. They trace up around George’s temple, drawing him downwards until Alexander’s breath skims across his face.

“Tell me what you need, George.”

Alexander’s eyes are warm and dark, gently demanding. The lines around his mouth are relaxed, cleared of the spite from before. Even the misplaced worry has gone out of him, leaving him the younger than George normally gets to see.

The thought of hurting him – of breaking Alexander – it’s unimaginable. Forgiveness even more so. George asks for it anyway.

“I need you to forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” Alexander smiles, sweet and a little teasing. “George, it’s already forgotten.”


End file.
